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American Experience: LBJ

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Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) certainly had the potential to go down in history as one of the greatest presidents the United States ever had. He, more than anyone else, was responsible for the triumph of the civil rights movement, and his war on poverty legislation offered many people a chance where before there was none. Conservatives often deride Johnson's legislation as the cause of the ballooning government expenditures, but that is a phony argument. The programs started by LBJ have been dramatically expanded since then, often under Republican administrations.
However, LBJ was defeated by two powerful forces that he simply could not control. They were the Vietnam War and black anger that spilled out into the streets. In fairness to the man, no one else could have controlled them. Given the political situation in the United States at that time, no American president could have withdrawn from Vietnam. The spectre of the "Red Menace" was overpowering, and no one could possibly consider withdrawing from IndoChina, which would have led to an almost immediate takeover by the Communist North Vietnamese.
What is so tragic is the amount of self-delusion that existed in the United States government at that time. Johnson and his senior advisors really believed that they could win the war in Vietnam, if only they would not falter and show weakness. They never realized that not only was the war not winnable, it wasn't even possible to tie. The best quote about that war is near the end of the tape, when a senior official says, "The North Vietnamese knew that we would eventually leave the country. Therefore, all they had to do was hold out and take over when we left." Johnson realized that the only way to "win" the war was to obliterate North Vietnam, something that could only be done with nuclear weapons. However, this would have led to World War III, as the Chinese and Soviets would not have stood by while this was being done.
John Connally is interviewed on the tape as saying that he advised Johnson to use whatever force necessary to win the war. Connally, as were all the other hawks, was the most delusional of all Americans. The United States dropped more tonnage of bombs on Vietnam, a nation of about 130,000 square miles, than was dropped on Europe throughout the entire Second World War. Since Germany alone was almost that size, and bombs were dropped throughout Europe, it should have been obvious, even to a fool, that more bombs would not defeat the North Vietnamese. There is little value in bombing a bomb crater.
The second force was the pent-up fury that blacks had over the decades of their oppression. Although Johnson was creating legislation that was alleviating the suffering of blacks, it was not fast enough for some and many of the nation's inner cities exploded in rioting. Johnson was baffled by this, confronting the only black man in his administration, demanding to know why blacks didn't appreciate what he was doing.
Therefore, what you see on this tape is a man who was a political dynamo, enormously capable of making political deals. He was a master at insider politics, capable of stroking members of congress just the right way, in order to get what he wanted. His great failing was that he never understood that the North Vietnamese leadership were not members of the U. S. Congress, where he could buy their support by building a dam in their district. So, as the tape progresses, you see the most confident, capable man being slowly reduced to someone who was beaten into submission.
As the narrators emphasize, much of the difficulty was due to Johnson's lack of candor with the American people. He misled the American people so much about the situation in Vietnam that when he told the truth, he was not believed. Tet was a military disaster for the Vietcong forces, they never fully recovered from their losses. However, when Johnson tried to explain it to the public, even longtime supporters of the war began to oppose it.
LBJ was a giant of a man, physically and politically. He put this nation on a course of social change via legislation that we can be proud of. Yet, he is rarely remembered with fondness, it is as if the nation would rather not think of him at all. This tape shows him as he was, talking with pride at the legislation that he put through the Congress, trying to explain his policies in Vietnam, pressuring members of congress by getting right in their faces, showing his surgical scar and sometimes even picking his nose. More history was packed into the sixties than any other decade in the last half of the twentieth century. In many ways, Johnson was the sixties, although the forces of that time destroyed him. From this tape, you can witness his political death from a thousand cuts.

PBS' "American Experience" has become synonomous with quality television, and its profile of the country's Vietnam War-embattled president, Lyndon B. Johnson, is one of the reasons why. While Johnson arguably is remembered foremost as the president done in by an unpopular war, he is presented here as a man and politician of much more substance and who apparently did have an honest and compassionate empathy for his constituency, especially the impoverished and disenfranchised. After the obligatory recounting of Johnson's birth and childhood, the documentary takes us to Johnson's early career on Capitol Hill and his gradual ascent to power, starting with his selection as presidential candidate John F. Kennedy's vice presidential running mate. On that count, we get a feeling of a tenuous relationship between the charismatic Bostonian and prairie-tough Texan, a political combination that became even more tenuous by the out-and-out dislike between the eventual vice president and Robert F. Kennedy, brother and attorney general of the president. Of course, the shattering events in Dallas Nov. 22, 1963, vaulted LBJ to the pinnacle of world power, a positioned that was solidifed by a 1964 landslide presidential election victory. From there, LBJ sets off to expand his predecessor's social agenda, from voting rights for the country's disenfranchised minorities to the "war on poverty." But, not surprisingly, the unpopular war in Southeast Asia becomes LBJ's highest priority. In the end, of course, the fire of public opposition to both the war and Johnson's handling of it forced the president who just four years earlier was validated by the American people in a landslide victory not to even seek renomination. Though LBJ is perhaps unfairly linked to a presidential administration that was dismantled by civil protest, we are reminded in this profile that he also worked toward a better society for America's poor and disenfranchised. In the end, we actually develop a sense that Johnson was moved more by public service than personal gains of power and can only hope that history treats him kinder than his contemporaries.

This video is an absolute must for anybody who is interested in not only contemporary US political history but also in the art of politics itself. This superbly crafted set of films gives a vivid account of one of the most controversial and, in my opinion, underated US Presidents.

LBJ was a Conservative Democrat. LBJ was a liberal Democrat. LBJ could be the nicest chap you ever met. LBJ could be a real SOB. In short - LBJ was full of contradictions. It is this which is best brought out from both tapes. This is no narrative history. It attempts to really get behind the man.

I could go on of course. However, I would not want to spoil the hours of pure pleasure you are sure to attain with this video.

From the time Lyndon Johnson left office in 1969 until the
time this film was made in 1990, his reputation was very
negative: the heartless war-monger and the sleazy wheeler-dealer. However, in the 1980's historians, prominent among them
Robert Dallek, had begun to bring out a more balanced, nuanced view of the man. These historians, whose views appear in this film marked a turning point in the public's view of this most complicated man. Long-time associate John Connally points out that he could be compassionate and cruel, crude or charming, generous or selfish. These different traits are constantly brought to the fore by the many people close to LBJ who appear in the film. Various important points that come out are:
(1) The breakthroughs in Civil Rights in the 1950's and 1960's were largely due to his efforts. As a Southerner he was able to get whites in the south to accept desegregation without a large-scale white backlash.
(2) The controversial senatorial election in 1948 which LBJ won by 87 votes with the help of ballot-box stuffing was hardly unusual in Texas or other parts of the country. Johnson was not involved personally in the incident. Although it is said that "Landslide Lyndon"'s career was stained by it, the same could be said of Harry Truman who was also elected in a similar way in 1934, and yet he managed to shake loose of the allegations.
(3) LBJ was well aware of the risks he was taking in committing
US ground forces to Vietnam. I was stunned when former Defense Secretary Clark Clifford states in the film that any other President would have taken the same decision. The military and CIA quite accurately laid out the risks to the President in 1965, and LBJ accurately predicted to aide George Reedy at the time that Vietnam would be his downfall.
(4) LBJ played an vital role in reassuring the country after the assassination of President Kennedy and prevented the outbreak of an anti-Communist hysteria due to the Communist connections of assassin Lee Oswald which might have lead to war with the USSR.

I highly recommend this film for someone who is interested in American history and the country's Presidents.

There have already been a number of excellent reviews on this documentary.

President Johnson will remain a controversial President until after we are in our graves. More than any other twentieth-century President, he represents greatness in sterling qualities and faults combined. LBJ had no interests outside politics. He never read a book for pleasure, had no hobbies--he lived and breathed politics to the exclusion of all else. His personal magnetism has been well-documented, and his bullying just as well-documented. How fortunate he was to have Lady Bird for a wife!

It is pure speculation where the Presidency might have taken LBJ, tied as he is to Vietnam. There is little doubt that his leadership combined with raw political power moved the civil rights movement forward as no one else could have. He truly wanted to end poverty in this country, not simply lending lip service. He matured in the Presidency, striving for accomplishments as no President since. Nevertheless, Vietnam proved the millstone that proved his failure.

I will always find it poignant watching that last public appearance he had, where he was giving a speech while quietly popping nitroglycerin tablets for his angina. With today's medical resources he wouldn't have died so young, or so painfully.

The New Deal Texas liberalism that President Johnson represented has been lost in 'compassionate conservatism' in our state, but Mr. Johnson's documentary can take us back to a time when Texas was not only big, but also had big ambitions.

This video provides a very interesting and unbiased account of LBJ. Johnson's complexities are developed well and the viewer truly appreciates LBJ's rise from obscurity and the manner in which he did it. The producers of the film do a wonderful job of showing Lyndon Johnson's compassion, drive, wit and charm, along with his other innumerable characteristics, as he oversees the passage of more landmark legislation than any president before or since. The only drawback with the film is the failure to fully provide an analysis of the impact of all of the Great Society legislation. On the other hand, the film accurately captures the anguish suffered by LBJ as he led the country into Vietnam. This film should be seen by all Americans and is a gold mine for LBJ enthusiasts like myself.

This is one of the most riveting documentaries made about a U.S. President and certainly the best of the "American Experience" series. It illuminates the complex, neurotic, fascinating, flawed and brilliant life of Lyndon Johnson better than anything ever done. The combination of interviews and archival footage (including color home movies of Johnson during the '48 campaign), this brings LBJ more closely into focus.

I have watched this video dozens of times and it never flags. The haunting musical score is outstanding, as are the interviews with those who knew, loved and loathed Johnson. This documentary clearly shows that had if not been for Vietnam (admittedly, a huge "what if") LBJ would have been the greatest President of the 20th century, after FDR. For anyone with even a peripheral interest in LBJ or the turbulent 60's, this is a must see.

LBJ evokes strong reactions among Americans. On the one hand, he helped remake America by passing some of the most important domestic legislation in the nation's history. Although the documentary doesn't state this explicitly, LBJ pushed through more legislation than any president in American history except for FDR. It wasn't just quantity, it was quality. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the perhaps even more important Voting Rights Act of 1965 as well as the creation of Medicare and Headstart and a host of other superb programs that have helped remake America. On the other hand, there was Vietnam. What is even more heartbreaking about the tragedy of that stupid little war was that LBJ felt pretty much like the war protesters did. If you listen to the Johnson White House tapes he says all the things about the war that we now understand about the war. He knew that losing there would not lead to Communist victories elsewhere. He didn't see that we could win there or how we could win. But he also felt that political exigencies made it impossible not to prosecute the war there. And to be honest, given the political climate of the time, it is hard to see how he could have done other than what he did. The overwhelming belief at the time was that you had to meet perceived Communist aggressive wherever possible with complete opposition. Nevermind that the Vietnamese people overwhelmingly wanted to be a unified nation under Ho Chi Minh, who was the most popular person in the southern part of the nation as well as the North. The brute fact is that the only way we could have "won" the war would have been to kill off about 80% of the population. You simply never, ever can win a war where most of the population favors the other side. And LBJ eventually came to realize this, even while he couldn't figure out a way of extricating the U.S. from the war.

LBJ was fascinating for the strength of his personality and his skills as a political operative. His abilities to persuade others is legendary. Like Nixon he lived constantly with an inferiority complex and sought affirmation from others, interpreting political victories as love for him as a person. The documentary does a decent but not complete job at getting at the complexities of Johnson's personality. It also fails to do justice to some of his personal convictions. For instance, he had long worked for the rights of non-Anglos in Texas, working hard for Hispanics. He did play along with many of the racist Southern senators, but this was political expediency rather than personal conviction.

LBJ's legacy is a strange one. He is usually ranked just below the group of the greatest American presidents at the top. Despite Vietnam he is easily, with no serious competition, ranked as the greatest American president since Truman, being ranked just below people like Wilson and Jefferson, at about the same place as Polk. Where would he have been ranked without Vietnam? I suspect he would be up there with Teddy Roosevelt, just behind the Big Three of Lincoln, FDR, and Washington. As it is, there is Vietnam. Never in American history did one particular event so devastate and nearly negate all the other amazing things that any American president achieved. A great documentary, even though it barely scratches the surface of the enigma that was LBJ.

I first viewed this American Experience on PBS when it came out in the 90's, and recently purchased the DVD from Amazon. I was not let down. Memory served me right that this is among the best productions presented by American Experience. LBJ "the program" helps make sense of the complex LBJ "the man". This president was among the most driven personalities in our history, and the producers here bring it out with sometimes brutal honesty but compassion for the realities of what Johnson was up against.

This is beyond the best presidential documentary ever - it's probably the best documentary I've ever seen. On my list of top ten films of all time. I was born during his administration, but when the film first ran on PBS, I knew almost nothing about him. That's the best way to approach this film, which probably makes it an outstanding teaching tool. David Grubin is a superstar. If you lean to the left in your views at all, this is something you really need to see. It's a heartbreaker. Perhaps the neocons should have watched this before deciding to invade Iraq? Maybe we all could learn from this. My only complaint is that Michael Bacon's outstanding soundtrack has never been released on CD, or even made available for download.